National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748‑7000:2022.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee IST/15, Software and systems engineering.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

This standard was produced by the US IEEE Computer Society within their committee processes and as such is a professionally produced standard. However, the UK committee have reservations about its usefulness as a standalone item for anyone interested in system design. The UK committee’s reservations are as follows.

It is difficult to treat ethical aspects of system design alone. BS/ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015Systems and software engineering —System life cycle processes already covers system design, and although it does not focus on ethical aspects specifically, it puts system design in the framework of complete system life cycle processes. BS/ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015 is referenced informatively in BS/ISO/IEC/IEEE:24748‑7000:2022.
The UK committee did not get opportunity to provide technical review comments on this standard but hope to do so when it is reviewed in future.
BS/ISO/IEC/IEEE:24748‑7000:2022 can provide users with useful insight into system design. However, because it has not been widely used internationally, the UK committee urges caution to its users in applying the standard.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

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Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 31 May 2023.

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ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748‑7000 was prepared by the Systems and Software Engineering Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society (as IEEE 7000 2021) and drafted in accordance with its editorial rules. It was adopted, under the “fast-track procedure” defined in the Partner Standards Development Organization cooperation agreement between ISO and IEEE, by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC 7, Software and systems engineering.

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Abstract: A set of processes by which organizations can include consideration of ethical values throughout the stages of concept exploration and development is established by this standard. Management and engineering in transparent communication with selected stakeholders for ethical values elicitation and prioritization is supported by this standard, involving traceability of ethical values through an operational concept, value propositions, and value dispositions in the system design. Processes that provide for traceability of ethical values in the concept of operations, ethical requirements, and ethical risk-based design are described in the standard. All sizes and types of organizations using their own life cycle models are relevant to this standard.

Keywords: case for ethics, concept of operations, ethical value requirements, ethical values elicitation, ethically aligned design, IEEE 7000™, software engineering, system engineering, value-based requirements, value prioritization

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Participants

At the time this IEEE standard was completed, the Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design Working Group had the following membership:

Ali Hessami, Chair

Sarah Spiekermann, Vice Chair

Zvikomborero Murahwi, Secretary

Annette Reilly, Technical Editor

Lee Barford
James Beetem
Jared Bielby
Barbara Bohr
Noah Brodbeck
Jennifer Costley
Brandt Dainow
Feyzan Dalay
Colleen Dorsey
Andrey Fajardo
Tony Gillespie
Lewis Gray
Beiyuan Guo
Victoria Hailey
Ali Hossaini
Valery Karpov
Edmund Kienast
Vlada Leushina
Ruth Lewis
Gerri Light
Carol Long
Emile Mardacany
Jacob Metcalf
Rod Muttram
Alexander Novotny
Freddy Pirajan
Sridhar Raghavan
Randy Rannow
Dina Salah
Chris Santos-Lang
Robert Schaaf
Sam Sciacca
Giuseppe Spampinato
Ozlem Ulgen
Mark Underwood
Altaz Valani
Michelle Victor
Gisele Waters
Till Winkler

The IEEE 7000 Working Group acknowledges the contributions of John C. Havens.

The following members of the individual Standards Association balloting group voted on this standard. Balloters may have voted for approval, disapproval, or abstention.

M. Victoria Alonso
Amelia Andersdotter
Bakul Banerjee
Lee Barford
Lyria Bennett Moses
Barbara Bohr
Juris Borzovs
Pieter Botman
Gustavo Brunello
Lyle Bullock
Paul Cardinal
Diego Chiozzi
Raul Colcher
Jennifer Costley
Jan de Liefde
Ronald Dean
Robert Donaldson
Hassan El Shazly
Kenneth Foster
David Fuschi
Lewis Gray
Louis Gullo
Beiyuan Guo
Tamas Haidegger
Victoria Hailey
John C. Havens
Ali Hessami
Werner Hoelzl
Piotr Karocki
Stuart Kerry
Edmund Kienast
Dwayne Knirk
Ansgar Koene
Susan Land
Kenneth Lang
Sean Laroque-Doherty
Ruth Lewis
Xiaoru Li
Lars Luenenburger
Javier Luiso
Emile Mardacany
Johnny Marques
Rajesh Murthy
Laura Musikanski
Alan Mustafa
Alexander Novotny
Joanna Olszewska
Mark Paulk
Christopher Petrola
James Pratt
Randy Rannow
Annette Reilly
Maximilian Riegel
Pablo Rivas Perea
Robert Schaaf
Daniel Schiff
Matthew Silveira
Gary Smullin
Sarah Spiekermann
Wayne Stec
Robert Stemp
Walter Struppler
Gerald Stueve
David Tepen
Ozlem Ulgen
John Vergis
David Walden
Kenneth Wallace
Lei Wang
Gisele Waters
Eleanor Watson
Till Winkler
Forrest Wright
Yu Yuan
Oren Yuen
Janusz Zalewski
Daidi Zhong

When the IEEE SA Standards Board approved this standard on 16 June 2021, it had the following membership:

Gary Hoffman, Chair

Jon Walter Rosdahl, Vice Chair

John D. Kulick, Past Chair

Konstantinos Karachalios, Secretary

Edward A. Addy
Doug Edwards
Ramy Ahmed Fathy
J. Travis Griffith
Thomas Koshy
Joseph L. Koepfinger^{^*}
David J. Law
Howard Li
Daozhuang Lin
Kevin Lu
Daleep C. Mohla
Chenhui Niu
Damir Novosel
Annette Reilly
Dorothy Stanley
Mehmet Ulema
Lei Wang
F. Keith Waters
Karl Weber
Sha Wei
Howard Wolfman
Daidi Zhong

Introduction

This introduction is not part of IEEE Std 7000™‑2021, IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design.

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the need to demonstrate socially responsible behavior when dealing with stakeholders, customers, regulators, and society in general. Socially responsible organizations recognize that their decisions and actions affect not just their financial bottom line but also society and the environment. One of the principles of social responsibility is ethical behavior.

Engineers, their managers, and other stakeholders benefit from well-defined processes for considering ethical issues along with the usual concerns of system performance and functionality early in the system life cycle. Consumers can be unaware of the ethical considerations regarding the products and services they use; it is only by rigorously examining ethical concerns that manufacturers, engineers, and technologists can align products and services with the results valued by acquirers, consumers, and users.

This standard aims to support organizations in creating ethical value through system design. Creating ethical value is a vision for organizations that recognizes their central role in society as shapers of well-being and carriers of societal progress that benefits humanity. Implementing IEEE Std 7000 can help them to strengthen their value proposition and avoid value harms. It is applicable to all kinds of products and services, including artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

IEEE Std 7000 is recommended for use by organizations engaged in concept exploration, requirements definition, or development of new or revised products or services. The standard requires consideration of values relevant to the culture where the system is to be deployed. It is applicable with any life cycle model or development methodology. IEEE Std 7000 is designed to work for all sizes and types of organizations (e.g., large, small, for profit, non-profit) aiming to deliver products that enable the ethical values of their customers and their own organization. The standard can help organizations to build better products with a more refined and nuanced value proposition and with less risk. This standard can be more easily applied in the context of organizational policies that are consistent with the organization’s ethical values, such as the following:

Readiness to include a wide group of stakeholders in the engineering effort
An open, transparent, and inclusive project culture
A commitment to quality
A dedication to ethical values from the top of the organization
A commitment to allocate sufficient time and resources for ethical requirements definition

IEEE Std 7000 is most effectively applied when organizational leaders and top management are involved in and assume responsibility for the products and services created. Through key roles defined for IEEE Std 7000 project teams, this standard seeks to help align management and engineering activities with stakeholder expectations for ethical values in the operational concept, value propositions, and design features being developed.

1 Overview

1.1 Scope

The standard establishes a set of processes by which engineers and technologists can include consideration of ethical values throughout the stages of concept exploration and development, which encompass system initiation, analysis, and design. This standard provides engineers and technologists with an implementable process aligning innovation management processes, system design approaches, and software engineering methods to help address ethical concerns or risks during system design.

IEEE Std 7000™ does not give specific guidance on the design of algorithms to apply ethical values such as fairness and privacy.

1.2 Purpose

1.3 Applicability and constraints

1.4 Process overview

1.5 Word usage

2 Normative references

3 Definitions, acronyms, and abbreviations

3.1 Definitions

3.2 Acronyms and abbreviations

4 Conformance

5 Key concepts and application

5.1 General application

5.2 Specified context of use

5.3 The Organization

5.4 Stakeholders

5.5 Human values

5.6 Ethical theories used to elicit values

5.7 Stages and processes

6 Key roles in Ethical Value Engineering Project teams

6.1 General

6.2 Role descriptions

6.3 Team competency

7 Concept of Operations (ConOps) and Context Exploration Process

7.1 Purpose of the Process

7.2 Outcomes

7.3 Activities and tasks

7.4 Inputs

7.5 Outputs

8 Ethical Values Elicitation and Prioritization Process

8.1 Purpose of the Process

8.2 Outcomes

8.3 Activities and tasks

8.4 Inputs

8.5 Outputs

9 Ethical Requirements Definition Process

9.1 Purpose of the Process

9.2 Outcomes

9.3 Activities and tasks

9.4 Inputs

9.5 Outputs

10 Ethical Risk-Based Design Process

10.1 Purpose of the Process

10.2 Outcomes

10.3 Activities and tasks

10.4 Inputs

10.5 Outputs

11 Transparency Management Process

11.1 Purpose of the Process

11.2 Outcomes

11.3 Activities and tasks

11.4 Inputs

11.5 Outputs

BS ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-7000:2022

Systems and software engineering. Life cycle management - Standard model process for addressing ethical concerns during system design

Current

Published:

31 May 2023